The Red Shield
by Turnered
Summary: A brief story about Hal's time in the monastery in Budapest.


This is just a one-shot for a prompt that I was sent on Tumblr, which I finally got around to writing. It's also my first time writing Hal, so constructive criticism and pointers are always welcome. And I'm sorry this took so long, but I finally got there.

Enjoy~

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_"About 300 years ago, I ended up in a monastery in Budapest. The monks lured me into a cell, pinned crucifixes to every wall. I was trapped for nine months. Then one of them came and asked if I'd repent of all my sins. I killed him. I draped his body over mine and then I used it as a shield to approach the door."_

**Budapest, 1706.**

He wasn't sure how he'd achieved it, but for the first three months he'd managed to keep track of how many weeks he'd been trapped down there. It was the only thing that had taken his mind away from the painful stabs of rising hunger in his stomach. A pain which only just managed to rival the agony created by the crucifixes surrounding him. The cell was just light enough for the crosses to reflect silver flex across the small space to highlight the damp brickwork, and other than the religious relics pinned around him, the room was empty. His eyes would sting whenever he opened them, and at times he would wonder if it was from lack of sleep or the symbols keeping him trapped there. It was inevitable really, that after such a long stretch of time the days and weeks began to bleed in to one another. Until he wasn't sure that his previous calculations were even accurate. Had it been more than three months, or was it just the hunger exaggerating how long it had been?

When Winter finally came, and the once damp walls of his cell glistened with a thin layer of ice, he knew just how much time had gone by. The clouded, disjointed memories of how he'd been lured down there came flooding back all at once, and with them came an even greater hunger. The darkness within him wasn't too pleased with the idea of being trapped in such pitiful and degrading conditions. He had been a Lord. No. He _was_ a Lord. Many times he had tried to escape, and as time went on and the pain grew, simply trying to walk towards the door had become too much. Five months in and he'd had to resort to trying to drag his aching, burning limbs across the cold floor. Nails digging into the cobbled ground until the pain had become too great and he'd have to scrabble his way back to the centre of the room. Huddled up and closed in on himself. He would sit with his knees drawn up to his chin and his arms hugged around his legs, until he braved the pain to try to escape once more.

It was his forty-sixth failed attempt, seven months into his imprisonment, that he'd given up on the idea of escaping altogether. He could barely remember the last time he'd seen one of the Monks who had tempted him down to the cell in the first place. He'd heard them, from time-to-time. The faint hum of their pietistic chanting hadn't gone unnoticed to the vampire, and he'd tried many times to block it out from fear of it worsening his state. Sometimes, when the weariness and hunger became too much and his mind was close to sleep, he'd dream of them coming down to him. Carrying great, old bibles with them and aiming their prayers directly towards him. Until the imagined pain became so great that he was forced to wake up and endure the real thing.

Or maybe it wasn't imagined. Maybe they _had_ visited him on occasion. It was hard to tell what was real and what tortures he had created himself.

Once he had dreamt that a Priest had gone down to his cell, reading passages from Leviticus and swaying a thurible in front of him. It had been the only time that he had almost let his rage get the best of him. Where his desire to let the man know that he was preaching to a deaf audience had almost been great enough for him to overcome the pain. This was the only dream that Hal had convinced himself was real, because the scent of incense had lingered in the prison for days afterward, and he wasn't visited again until many weeks later. He was certain he was dreaming again when the creaking door with its rusting locks began to open. He kept his face buried against his knees. Shaking from both the cold and the unsatisfied blood-lust.

"Isten legyen irgalmas," the voice was a mere whisper, but to Hal's heightened senses the foreign words echoed and bounced around the room, breaking him from his daze. Slowly he had raised his head and half opened his eyes, only to be greeted by the sight of a tall man dressed in long black robes, which almost concealed him entirely in the shadows. When he moved farther into the space, and made the sign of the cross over his chest, Hal could see how thin the man was. How the robes were loose and flowing around the monk's small, fragile figure.

"Szeretné, hogy megbánjuk a bűneinket?" At one time Hal knew he would have understood what was being asked of him, but all his senses could focus on was the rushing of blood through the monk's veins. The deep, delicious thud of a heartbeat, which quickened ever so subtly as Hal pushed himself to his knees. The very idea, that even in this state he could scare someone brought about a very faint smile to his lips, which only lasted for a short few seconds before he was reminded again of what he had to do.

"Mit keresnek megbocsátást?" The stranger continued with urgency, but it wasn't the words that angered Hal. It wasn't that he realised that the monk was offering him forgiveness (as if he could ever be given such a thing), it was the very simple fact that the monk hadn't moved back in terror once the vampire had brought himself up to his feet.

"Nine months," he didn't bother to use the stranger's language, he didn't care if the man understood him or not, "For nine months I have been left down here, amongst the rats and decay." Even with his best efforts, his voice was as unsteady as his steps as he closed the gap between himself and the monk. But still the man put all his faith into the crucifixes surrounding them, and didn't flinch away as Hal stumbled forward. "If there is one thing you can do for me, testvér, it is this-" The vampire lunged forward with new-found speed and strength that surprised even himself, and sunk his fangs into the stranger's neck. The force sending the both of them tumbling back into the icy-wall.

Despite the hunger brought about from nine months of not feeding, Hal barely drank from the torn throat before he lifted the limp body onto his shoulders. Blood trickled down from the monk's neck and seeped into the rags covering Hal's chest and arms. Even with such a slight body, the corpse provided just enough protection to hide the vampire from the surrounding crosses. As his headache finally began to subside slowly after months of agony, he took his first steps towards freedom.


End file.
